Meeting Five

Today we started our session with a long “E” and long “I” word sort. My student completed this particular sort with major success. She was able to sort all the words into the correct categories.  After the word sort we focused our attention on the book Dinosaurs Before Dark. We looked at her predication paper she wrote during our last session. I asked her if there were any other predications she wanted to add, she said no. Before we started reading we discussed different strategies that readers use to help them comprehend the text they read. The strategy we mainly focused on was visualizing. We discussed the benefits of being able to visualize characters and events that occur in the text that we read. We also discussed the importance of being able to connect/understand the characters in the books that we read.  I then had her read me the first two chapters of Dinosaurs Before Dark. While she read the chapters there were a handful of times she self-corrected reading errors that she had made. While she read I encouraged her to use think alouds. At the beginning of the first chapter I contributed a few think alouds to help get her started.  When the reader finished the chapters I presented her with a character consideration sheet. This sheet asked question such as…

·         What does the character look like?

·         What would you do if you were the character?

·         What things does the character do?

·         Do you like the character? Why or why not?

·         Tell something important about the character.

The student expressed how much she liked this worksheet. I was thrilled to hear her say this because the worksheet required her to think back on what she had read and think back to the details of the text. She was able to complete the character worksheet without any problems. Once she finished she asked me if she could have another one for the other main character! Through this meeting I learned that it is a wonderful idea to implement new learning tools and/or new graphic organizers. By providing your students with different resources you are providing them with multiple opportunities to succeed.